


The Portrait & Secrets Therein

by SageGreen



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel demon baby, Bombshell - Freeform, Confessions, Crowley sleeping through the 1800s was dumb, Established Relationship, Family Secrets, Love, M/M, Oblivious Crowley, Post Apocalypse, Pregnancy, Serious Talks, Support/Comfort, Tears, Trans Angel, angsty boys, lowkey badass Aziraphale, not even close to canon, so many tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 05:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SageGreen/pseuds/SageGreen
Summary: Crowley slept through the 1800s with barely a thought as to what he might be missing. Turns out it was rather a lot, as he finds out when he accidentally takes drunken teasing with Aziraphale too far & ends up asking just the right question at not quite the right time.





	The Portrait & Secrets Therein

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so I like to bust back into the fanfic scene after nearly a decade, with a ridiculous AU right off the bat. This has been rattling around in my brain for a while now so I had to get it out (to share with you lovely people in the hopes that you might enjoy it!)
> 
> I know it’s a popular theory that Crowley was Raphael before his fall, and I love that theory, but it does not apply here. I acknowledge it and beg forgiveness from any readers who subscribe to it wholeheartedly.
> 
> Not beta’d. We die like angels & demons (ie: unprepared idiots with a tyre iron in hand.)

It was too late in the night (technically, early in the morning) to be carrying on as loudly as they were. However, they had three things working in their favour: first, Aziraphale owned the entire building where they were, if they had been sober enough to admit it, carrying on too loudly, so there were no neighbors to complain. 

Second, in classic London fashion, it had been drizzling, foggy, and chilly all night, which meant people were indoors and not likely to overhear the rukus in the bookshop, with the added bonus of the white noise of the rain muffling most sounds. 

Third, the two beings causing all the noise were too drunk to give a sod about what anyone else might think. They had saved the world, after all, and had felt in the days & weeks that followed that allowing them to celebrate that fact (almost every night, as the case may be) was the least that humanity could do to thank them. Not coincidentally, the strength of this conviction increased in tandem with the alcohol content in their bloodstreams.

"I _didn't!_ " Aziraphale protested, barely getting the word out between laughing fits, a tear escaping his eye and running down his flushed cheek. He was sitting on the floor, one arm hooked over the seat of the sofa behind him, trying to keep himself upright while he contorted in laughter, his free hand holding a too-full glass of wine. It was dangerously close to sloshing out of the glass and onto his clothes.

"You did!" Crowley bellowed in rebuttal, also laughing, but slightly more composed, having the upper hand in the playful disagreement and knowing it full well. The demon clumsily removed his glasses and set them on the cluttered coffee table in front of the sofa so that he could swipe tears from his own serpentine eyes. 

"That poor, dear, sweet, gentle old woman," Crowley drawled, really laying it on thick, "she just wanted to buy a copy of _The History of Little Henry and His Bearer_ for her granddaughter and you _lied_ to her!" Crowley whooped, in a way that seemed almost proud of the angel on the rug next to him. 

The lanky man opposite Aziraphale also had an arm draped over the sofa, but instead of a glass of wine, held the entire bottle in his other hand, waving it about for dramatic effect, punctuating his story. "Said it was a family heirloom, of all things! Couldn't _bear_ to part with it! And then you even had the audacity, the _gall,_ to point to— to _that,_ and claim it was hers! Her book!" 

The demon devolved into cackles again and gestured with his bottle appendage to a framed portrait placed high on a bookshelf in front of them. It was a typical early 19th century portrait, oil paint, of a woman looking benevolently at the artist, hint of a smile on her face, shoulders bare, the neckline of her bodice covered in a little too much lace, her otherwise severely slicked down hair framing her face with a few too many curls. 

Aziraphale followed the demon's gesture to the portrait, and his laughter stuttered, then calmed completely. He kept his pale blue eyes on the painting, leaning back into the sofa a bit. "I didn't," he said again. The angel took a deep breath before repeating, completely even, tone of voice lower this time, "I didn't" and took a deep drink from his glass.

Still completely bemused, Crowley peered at his companion for a long moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn't, he felt forced to clarify the point he was obviously missing. "What the devil are you talking about, you didn't! That's your relative? Who is it-- Gabriel in drag?" He giggled at his own joke, and although Aziraphale's lips twitched into the hint of a smirk at the suggestion, the angel didn't laugh. He just continued to gaze at the painting. Eventually Crowley’s giggles subsided.

"Rosaline," Aziraphale finally said in that same even tone. "Her name was Rosaline."

Finally, the demon sensed the shift in the angel's demeanor, and his own laughter faltered and died, although a smile was still on his tipsy face. He stared at the blonde man absorbed in the painting. The angel's face was soft, in a way the demon wasn't sure he could place. Had he seen this look before? He couldn't remember seeing this exact expression. It stirred something worrisome in his chest. Crowley turned to look at the painting.

She was a lovely thing, the demon had to admit. If the artist was worth their salt at all, and it was a faithful interpretation of the real woman, she had fine, pale skin, high cheekbones, and the lightest hazel eyes he'd ever seen. Her auburn hair was piled high on her head and she had a sweet smile with a hint of mischief in it.

Slowly, something dawned on Crowley and he felt a strange thrill of jealousy run through him.

"...Angel... A relative? A woman? Did you have a wife I never knew about?!" 

Aziraphale finally turned to the demon to shoot him a grimace while Crowley began laughing again.

"Oi, Angel-- you have a type, don't you? Love you some sassy gingers I see!" Crowley waggled his eyebrows at the angel, teasing, and took another draw from the bottle in his hand. The angel didn't respond, just pursed his lips and turned back to the portrait. 

This time Crowley was more aware that his joke had fallen flat. His companion wasn’t laughing. The angel had, in fact, shifted his position so that he was no longer draped over the sofa facing Crowley. His back was now flush against the sofa, feet flat on the floor, both hands wrapped around the now empty wine glass tucked between his knees and his chest, gazing directly at the painting. Crowley took a steadying breath and looked between the portrait and Aziraphale, not sure if he should apologize or probe or let it go.

While Crowley was puzzling over the options of what to say next, Aziriphale made a decision. One that he’d been puzzling over for much longer than Crowley’s current impasse. No, “puzzling” wasn’t even the right word; “agonizing” was more appropriate. As these things often happened, it seemed that now, all of a sudden, without any real proper warning or time to prepare, was the time. The angels usually steady heart pounded. 

"She was my," Aziraphale's voice cracked, and he had to pause to clear his throat. The rest of the words came out barely above a whisper: "She was our daughter."

Crowley's eyebrows pinched together in confusion, waiting for the punchline, waiting for the angel to turn to him and smile, for his eyes to crinkle with laughter at getting back at the demon for his teasing, for the giggle to peal through the night. Instead, endless moments passed where all that Crowley could hear was the dying crackle of the fire across the room. The rain occasionally pelting against the window. It was so silent that Crowley was sure he could hear the ticking of the angel's pocketwatch, still tucked into his ratty velvet waistcoat. 

After cycling through confusion, terror, amusement, anger, and pain, the demon settled on voicing irritation. It was as good a place to start as any, he thought.

"Angel," he snapped, "I'm sorry if I said something out of line, but that's a stupid joke. It's not even fucking possible." He downed the dregs of the wine bottle in his hand and slammed it down on the coffee table between them and the bookshelf holding the portrait.

"That's what I always assumed, too," Aziraphale breathed, still looking at the painting. "Thousands of years, never so much as a scare, but then..." He rolled the shoulder closest to Crowley in what could have been a shrug. Crowley just stared at the man's profile, not sure if he was dreaming, or the angel was completely wasted, or perhaps his friend had been replaced by a lessor demon at some point this evening sent up to confuse and torture him.

Crowley turned again to look at the woman in the painting, trying to slow his pulse as he saw that she could, now that he was looking for it, actually pass for a blood relative of Aziraphales. The nose, the smile, the blush in the cheeks. ...And, he noted, prickles picking their way across his skin, she also had all of the features he'd initially pointed out as things that resembled his own. He had a sudden urge to purge the alcohol from his bloodsteam, but didn't want to dignify this nonsense with such a severe response. He slowly turned his focus back to the angel.

"Aziraphale. Do you really expect me to believe that I knocked you up, you carried to term, gave birth to a daughter and she, apparently," he gestured angrily at the painting, "grew up to be a fully functioning adult, and _I never knew?_ " The end of the sentence emerged as a low hiss. Crowley was getting pissed off. 

Aziraphale turned to him, another tear slipping down his face, this time not from laughter. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Crowley goggled at him, snake eyes wide and furious, and more than a bit confused now. His mouth opened and closed rapidly as he tried to spit out... an insult? A threat? More laughter? He had no idea. All he knew was that the angel was way too committed to this story and Crowley was losing his grasp on the situation.

"Do you remember September 1802?" Aziraphale asked, almost casually, as he turned his attention back to the portrait, saving Crowley from having to come up with something biting to say. The demon was thrown from his scrambling train of thought, enough alcohol in his system that he blindly obeyed the request for an answer, searching his memory.

"Uh.. the opera, I think. We went to the opera. And then drinks here, of course, and then..." Crowley's mind sank comfortably back into the memory. The bookshop was new then-- Aziraphale had just opened it a year or two before-- and as it was within a short walk of the opera house, it was the natural choice to retreat to for some fine drinks without prying eyes. 

It had been no surprise that the night had ended as it had. By that point there had been thousands of years of clandestine liaisons between the two; fumbling beneath togas in bathhouses; padding silently between one another's mud huts in the moonlight; sneaking through secret passageways in castles and palaces to whichever room the other was in; in the holds of ships passing across seas; nights together slick in desert heat, in jungle storms, burrowed in furs in frigid winters; and more recently, the back of a bookshop.

Initially Crowley had tried to play off their physical meetings as a temptation, as pure lust. Aziraphale meanwhile had used the excuse of offering an Act of Service, of companionship and intimacy to a Lost Soul. It was only a short time before they forgot the Official Reasons they would end up in bed together, and wordlessly acknowledged the truth of it; they loved one another. They knew it, but they never spoke it aloud. You never knew who was listening, and without putting words to the truth, they both had plausible deniability. Anyway, they didn't need to say it. Six thousand years of watching out for each other, indulging one another in the other's favorite things, and, well... engaging in every carnal act humans could come up with together, said more than words could.

And indulge _every_ act they had. Angels and Demons were sexless by nature and only presented genitals if they were Making An Effort, and Crowley and Aziraphale had always taken liberties with their ability to choose, change, and magic whatever set of parts they wanted. Throughout the millennia the pair had happily coupled with any & every combination of human parts, picking and choosing their bits to suit whatever they felt like having at the time.

So it was with a feeling of ice sliding down his spine that Crowley settled on the part of the memory regarding the angel's Effort that particular night. 

He recalled top hats tumbling to the hardwood floor in the dark. The second the door to the bookshop was shut Crowley had pushed Aziraphale against the wall, hungrily pressing his lips against the soft pink skin of the angel's mouth. The demon had felt a smile spread across the lips of his beloved, and a warm glow came over him at the angel's returned enthusiasm. Aziraphale ran gloved hands up Crowley's sides and had slowly tangled careful fingers in his hair. In response Crowley slid his thigh between his partner's legs and pressed, eliciting a moan from the being pressed against the wall. The demon learned in again and took note of the lack of an extra, hard appendage. 

"Are you making an Effort, Angel?" He had growled into the blonde's cheek, and Aziraphale had laughed, a breathy, dark sound.

"I am," he purred back, and pressed a kiss onto the demon's neck before putting a hand gently on the dark man's shoulder and pushing him back slightly. "A drink or two first, I think," he said, straightening his high waistcoat and stepping past the smirking demon. He looped quickly behind him and paused on his way to the back room just long enough to press against Crowley's back and whisper in his ear, "And then I'll let you have me all night long."

And he had. Crowley enjoyed having Aziraphale in any way the angel would let him have him, but he would always secretly worship his traditionally female manifestations.

Crowley settled back into the present, a sober expression on his face even though he was sure he had to still be quite drunk. So that was it then. Aziraphel had chosen the parts of a woman that night. He let his eyes drift back up to the angel, who was now looking at him, head tilted back onto the sofa.

"Azirphale... Are you telling me the truth?" It was the most intelligent sentence Crowley could formulate at the moment. 

Aziraphale pursed his lips again and nodded shortly, twice. Crowley felt something in him begin to crumble as the angel slung his arm towards him, empty wine glass in hand, and also shook the glass shortly, twice. Crowley automatically reached for the bottle on the table, miraculously refilled.

"How could... why didn't you tell me?" He asked, voice and arm both shaking as he refilled the glass. He wasn’t sure he believed this, yet, it was too utterly bizarre and unexpected for him to accept. Aziraphale took a long drink before answering. Crowley followed suit straight from the bottle.

"I tried," Aziraphale said softly, settling back against the sofa, eyes on the portrait. "I... I knew almost right away. When it happened. The next morning. I could feel it. New life." He paused, remembering, and Crowley remained silent. "It was quite shocking, really. I was a bit panicked. I thought... Well, you were still here, if you remember, you spent the night..." the angel risked a glance at the demon to gauge his reaction, nervous blue eyes meeting stunned yellow ones for a brief moment; no. Not what he was worried he might see. Crowley hadn't known. Was that worse? 

The angel's attention flicked back to the painting. "I thought, you now... because I knew, because I could feel it, that maybe you could too...." 

The penny dropped. Crowley's closed his eyes as he tipped his head back in sudden realization, and he let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. "And then I disappeared," he filled in. To his shock, a gulping sob escaped the angel, jerking his snake eyes open and his attention back to the being curled up in front of him, whose own eyes were still on the painting.

"I thought maybe, well, it wouldn't take," the angel whispered, eyebrows arching up on his face as he tried to fight back full fledged crying. He was failing. "You know, in perfect human circumstances things don't always.... work out. And what are you and I? Not human! I didn't even know I had... all the parts!" He stopped to take a shaky breath and a shakier swallow of wine. It seemed to calm him slightly, and the next words from his mouth were a bit more audible, more even.

"I know I could have... taken care of it. Miracled it all away, as it were. But, well, that would go against everything I am as an angel, to believe in the sanctity of life, any life, and all that." He was doing well, his voice almost back to it's normal self-assured tone. He paused, and his voice cracked again on the next sentence, "And, well, I couldn't... I didn't want to. I wanted it. I wanted her." He hurriedly drained his glass at the confession and stuck out his arm for a refill. Crowley was already waiting to tip more wine into the glass, feeling numb.

"I tried to find you, Crowley," the angel said, turning his eyes at last to the demon, imploring him to understand. "I waited weeks, until I was... sure... and then I couldn't find you."

"I was sleeping," Crowley replied dumbly. 

"I know that now," Aziraphale replied, a little impatiently, "But at the time all I knew was that your flat was shut up and no one knew where you were. Where you had... gone, I assumed. Like I said, I thought.... I thought maybe you knew and... Had wanted nothing to do with it." He finished in a clipped tone. Not judgmental, just factual. As if it were completely understandable, expected even, that he would be abandoned in this situation. Crowley stared at him. 

"And so you had to do it all alone?" He asked softly. He wasn't sure what kind of answer he wanted. The thought of his angel having his child (a thought the demon had still not even begun to fully process) alone and scared gutted Crowley in a way he had not known was possible. And this was from a demon who had, in fact, been gutted before. 

The possibility that the angel may have found a replacement for him was almost as bad.

Aziraphale sighed, studying the picture again. "Well, not exactly. Raphael was a big help."

Crowley straightened up immediately, hackles raised, unearned indignancy giving strength to his voice. "Raphael!? An _Archangel?_ Heaven knows about this?!" He thundered. Or, well, tried to thunder. It came out more as a squeak.

"Not exactly," Aziraphale said, casting the demon a baleful look. "After several months, Gabriel and Raphael came down for a surprise visit. They had noticed your lack of demonic activities and assumed it was my doing, my thwarting, so they came to give me a commendation.” He paused, seeming to remember a detail he hadn’t thought about in a long time, and his lips twitched. “I couldn't fit my waistcoat on anymore at that point, I had it on but unbuttoned," he angel turned back to the demon with a grin, finding the memory funny in retrospect, "and Gabriel, of course, couldn't miss an opportunity to point out how fat I was getting!"

They both chuckled awkwardly, seizing the opportunity to break the incredible tension in the room. "What the fuck is with that guy's obsession with your waistline?" Crowley muttered, taking another swig from the wine bottle.

"I don't know," the angel sighed, "but it served me well that day. He was so quick to judge me he didn't see the truth right in front of him." He paused, becoming serious again. "But Raphael, of course; she knew. Right away."

"She?" Crowley asked, surprised. Aziraphale held up his free index finger while he swallowed another mouthful of wine. "Ah, yes. Raphael presented as a woman for most of the 19th century. Very lovely corporation, actually, rather reminded me of Nefertiti." Crowley raised his eyebrows and nodded, not wanting to derail the story further by speaking again, and the angel continued.

"When the meeting was over and Gabriel said it was time for them to get back to Heaven, Raphael said that she wanted to take the opportunity to catch up with me and that she'd head back up later. She was so cool about it even I didn't suspect anything. Then, as soon as he was gone, she waited for a moment, then turned to me, and walked over, and put her hands right on me," Aziraphale held out his own hands now and made a wide cupping gesture with his palms, one hand keeping just a thumb and finger on the wine glass to hold it upright as he did so. Crowley immediately recognized Aziraphale remembering the shape of his own swollen belly, of his child, and he felt a wrench in his gut. "And she said, 'Oh my old friend. What have you done?'"

Aziraphale dropped his hands after a moment, taking another sip of wine before settling back against the couch. Minutes ticked by while Crowley absorbed all this.

"Did she know it was me, then?" he finally asked.

"I told her," Aziraphale confessed. Crowley sucked in a breath, but couldn't think of anything to say.

"When she put her hands on me and confronted me I was too stunned to deny anything. Or say anything, really. I hadn't told anyone. Anybody. She seemed so understanding. She wasn't angry, or pitying, or judging me for ending up in a decidedly un-angelic state. With a _demon_ no less _._ So I told everything, right there, in the middle of the bookstore, with her hands on me. And when I'd told her everything, she still didn't judge. She told me that she wanted to help," A pause for another sip of wine, "That she was a healer, and a friend, and that she was bound to protect all humans, and that she wanted to help me." Azirphale's voice was back to a whisper by the end of the last sentence. Sometime in his tone sent the ice water back through Crowley's veins.

"Humans?" Was all Crowley could croak out.

Aziraphale nodded, tears coating his eyes again. He took a shuddering breath before resuming his story. "She examined me after I locked up the shop properly. To make sure everything was progressing as it should. And she started talking about human pregnancies and I was confused and told her so and she looked up at me, one ear still on the metal.... tube thingie they use to listen to the child’s heartbeat," Crowley glanced down to where the angel had, quite unconsciously, laid his free hand against his abdomen, remembering, "and there was sadness in her eyes. She said she thought I knew. That the child had been conceived on earth, of human bodies, and thus would be human." A tear slipped free.

"Mortal?" Crowley asked incredulously. He dragged his eyes up to the portrait. 

They both sat for some time, staring at the visage of their daughter, the rain still pattering against the window. The fire had found some hidden fuel in the depths of a log and was crackling away again.

"What was it like?" Crowley finally asked, voice barely above a whisper, turning back to Aziraphale. The angel looked over at him, and Crowley could see that his cheeks were coated in paths of silent tears. "Which part?" he asked. In reply, Crowley just arced his hands in front of his own stomach. Aziraphale smiled wistfully.

"I liked it, actually," he confessed. Crowley was surprised, pleasantly so, and his face showed it. Aziraphale wiped one of his cheeks dry and lowered his eyes to the floor, lost in memory. "It was nice. I could feel her move. Feel her grow. And it was... I had a piece of you with me even though you were gone," he finished in a rush and knocked back the last of his wine. He considered the empty glass for a moment and then set it onto the floor beside him instead of asking for a refill, then folded his hands in his lap. Crowley felt a wave of guilt and regret crash over him like a tsunami.

"The birth, I did not enjoy as much," the angel continued, a wry smile on his face now as he looked up at Crowley. The demon winced dutifully.

"How did you get away with that?" The redhead asked suddenly, "Being a massively pregnant man trying to pass it off as too many sweets and then suddenly much slimmer with a mystery baby?" His words had come out as more caustic than he'd intended, and the demon winced again. Aziraphale, however, didn't seem to take any offence.

"Well, it's not like situations like mine were uncommon or new at all," he reminded Crowley matter-of-factly. He frowned then, his confidence faltering. "Although I will admit that it's usually not a male celestial entity that finds one unexpecedtly in the family way..." Aziraphale ignored the demons titters at his phrasing and plowed on with his explanation, "But as I said, the concept is not new. Around the seven month mark I started letting my regulars know that my sister was with child and I would be leaving in a month or so to visit her and welcome the babe into the world. Wouldn't you know it? Bad fortune. When I returned home, dressed in black as a show of mourning my ‘sister,’ I had acquired an orphaned niece. My ward, now, as her only stable living relative." He looked back up at Rosaline. "It had the added benefit of being a story I could moderately keep up across all platforms; I told Heaven I had found the child abandoned during my travels and felt it was my duty to care for her."

Crowley nodded slowly. He'd heard the story countless times from countless women over the centuries and was impressed with the angel's tenacity. "And she had no... celestial... inclinations?" he asked tentatively. 

Aziraphale perked up at the question, reminded of another detail he hadn't given thought to in a long, long time. "Actually, when she was born..." 

He looked at Crowley carefully, unsure how he'd take the next bit of the story, "She had your eyes."

Crowley gaped at the angel for a solid minute, then turned back to the portrait, squinting at it, then scrambling up and removing the frame from the bookshelf, scrutinizing the face. Absent mindedly he wandered back to the sofa and plopped back onto the floor, closer to Aziraphale this time, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. The angel took the edge of the frame and gently pulled it half onto his lap, leaving half in Crowley's. Crowley looked at him in confusion, not knowing how to ask, or what to ask.

"She was born with yellow, slitted eyes," Aziaphale gently explained. "Neither Raphael nor I knew how or why. I guess because it's still part of your human form?" The angel glanced up into the heartbroken snake eyes peering back at him, and smiled at the demon before turning his attention down again. "At any rate. Raphael was there. When Rosaline was born. She helped with the birth. And she wanted to bless the baby, after we were both cleaned up and stable, before she left. But I wouldn't let her."

Crowley pulled back slightly from Aziraphale and squawked out a strange noise of shock. The angel met his gaze beseechingly.

"Well... I didn't know what it would mean to bless your child. What if it harmed her in some way? And, more than that, I was worried, what if you couldn't hold her if she were blessed, if you were to..." the implied words, _if you were to come back,_ hung unsaid in the air.

"But," the angel continued after drawing a breath, "Raphael... she didn't bless her, per se, but she did gift her." They both stared at the painting.

"By taking away my eyes," Crowley finally said bitterly.

Azirphale reached under the portrait to grasp Crowley's hand and twine their fingers together. Tears were threatening to spill from his eyes yet again, but as he looked at Crowley he was smiling broadly. "No. I was upset that she had changed Rosaline's eyes; I've always loved your eyes. I missed them terribly. I told her this. And... she told me that they, that these," he tapped the honey coloured irises in the painting, "these _were_ your eyes."

Crowley was no longer breathing as he turned in shock back to the painting. _His eyes_? Unbidden, with no warning, tears were falling from his own sunshine yellow, slitted eyes. Demon eyes. That he hated. _These were his eyes? ...before?_

He squeezed his eyelids tightly shut and tried to regain himself. Of all the bombshells dropped tonight, this could not be the one that undid him. He cleared his throat. "It's a good gift," he managed to croak out.

After a deep breath, and practically snapping Aziraphale's fingers in the tight grip he had beneath the painting in their laps, Crowley asked, "Was she a good baby?"

Aziraphale's face softened and he smiled beatifically. "She was the best baby," he purred. His smile shifted to cheeky. "She was an excellent sleeper. Of all the issues I was told I would have, getting her to sleep or stay asleep was never an issue!" Despite his tears, Crowley managed a smile and a short laugh at that.

"And she was a clever, clever girl. Excelled in school. Did have a propensity to get into mischief though," Aziaphale murmured, squeezing Crowley's hand again. "But never anything really, truly bad."

"I assume she was a bookworm?" Crowley asked, making an attempt at levity, sniffling and glancing around the bookshop. For first time in his existence, the demon realized why Aziraphale was so very possessive of certain children's books, why he was so insistent on never selling the building, why nothing in the place seemed to have changed in two hundred years. It was where he had raised their child, and he would never let it go so long as he had any say in the matter.

"Of course!" Aziaphale replied more than a little indignantly. And with more than a little pride, sniffed, "She was my daughter, after all."

Crowley gazed at the angel. He said it as if it were nothing-- _she is my daughter, after all_ \-- and Crowley felt the reality of this realization finally begin to settle into his bones. He turned back to the Riesling coloured eyes in the portrait. _Of his daughter._

"Did she know?" he whispered. Aziraphale paused.

"Eventually," he replied, slowly. "When she was very young I thought it best not to give her too much information. Although she did run me ragged for the first decade or so-- your reckless nature coupled with a father who can miracle away broken bones and injuries..." Aziraphale groaned and ran a hand over his face, remembering the delicate balancing act of protecting his wild child yet not giving away his cover as an angel. Once the hand was off his face he took a refocusing breath and plowed on. 

"When she was a teenager she started to notice that the parents of her friends were aging and I, well, wasn't... I told you, she was a clever girl. By the time she had finished her public education, I felt it was time to tell her the truth. I had done my best to give her a proper religious upbringing," he cast a wary glance at Crowley at this part, but the demon didn't so much as flinch in surprise (because it wasn't, in the least, a surprise,) "and I... showed her. She knew something was... different. I showed her my wings. I explained everything. About who I was. Who you were..." the angel trailed off.

"Did she wonder where I'd gone?" Crowley asked quietly. 

"Of course," came the equally quiet reply.

"What did you say?" 

"I told her the truth. That it wasn't uncommon for us to not see each other for years... maybe hundreds of years. That I didn't know if you knew about her at all. But that she was conceived in love."

Crowley had to press his eyes shut again for a few minutes at that. The angel let him sit in silence, lost in his own memories. 

He thought of Rosaline often-- every day-- but it was different to talk about her. Especially with the other being that had helped create her, and who had missed every blessed moment of her life. Aziraphale felt every emotion he'd imagined he'd feel if this conversation were to ever actually happen; guilt, relief, sorrow, joy in finally being able to share her life with Crowley. And more, emotions that he hadn't expected. So many memories that he hadn't visited for decades. He had _so much_ to tell the demon, but the Cole's Notes version would have to do for tonight.

Eventually he felt the slender man next to him shift his weight, ready to continue with the revealation Aziraphale had kept hidden away like a pearl for nearly a century and a half.

"And... the rest of it? What did she do with her life, then? What does the mortal offspring of an angel and a demon find to do on Earth?"

Aziraphale took a steadying breath, back on safer ground now. "She was a doctor," he beamed. Crowley raised his eyebrows and grinned.

"A woman doctor in the early 1800's! Atta girl," he said approvingly. "And what about.... Aziraphale, do we have heirs?!" The demon torqued his body around the face the angel, the realization hitting him suddenly, but the angel was already shaking his head gently.

"No," he confirmed. "I don't know if it was a result of her... unusual... biological origin, or just nature's will, but no. She was married briefly but her husband passed on shortly after the wedding. No children. And then she focused on her work." He smiled thinly. "But, she was very good at what she did. She helped many, many people."

"I wonder if that had anything to do with Raphael," Crowley wondered aloud.

"I wondered that too!" Aziaphale confessed. Silence enveloped the room once again.

"And what about.... the end?" Crowley finally asked. "Did she live a long life?"

"She did," Aziraphale confirmed warmly, voice very low. "She lived a long, good life. She was respected, and fulfilled, I think. And very loved." The angel breathed out though his nose trying to stop yet more tears from falling, but again failed. "I was there at the end. She was old yes, but her heart failed. It was somewhat expected." He cleared his throat. "Raphael brought her into the world. She came back to escort her out of it." 

Aziraphale's chin fell to his chest and some shallow sobs escaped him, body shuddering, and Crowley moved his hand from their lap to the angel's far shoulder, hugging the other's body to him tightly, encouraging his head to roll to Crowley's shoulder. The demon pressed his lips against Aziraphale's curls, his own tears falling silently into the angel's hair, and rested his cheek against the blonde head.

"Aziraphale... Why didn't you tell me?" 

The angel choked back his sobs, keeping his head on the other's chest. "She had been gone nearly twenty years by the time you woke up, Crowley. I had just begun to get over her loss. I didn't know how to tell you without falling apart. And I was worried you wouldn't believe me."

Crowley said nothing. It was all so bloody understandable. The demon was heartbroken, yet couldn't find it in himself to hold any malice or anger towards this angel he loved. Whom had bore him a child he never knew he had.

"And then when I did see you," Aziraphale whispered, "Just as I thought I might be able to tell you, you wanted me to give you holy water... and I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear losing you, losing half of her." Aziraphale sniffled. 

Crowley turned and planted another gentle kiss on the top of the angel's head. 

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there." What else was there to say? 

Aziraphale squeezed the demon's thigh beneath the painting. "I'm sorry I didn't try harder to find you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." The angel shifted enough so that he was looking at Crowley, their faces inches apart. He looked so earnest that it made the demon's heard twist in his chest. 

" _Thank you_ for giving her to me."

Crowley gently closed the gap between them and kissed his beloved. It was tender, and chaste, and he pulled away after a moment and smiled softly at the angel. "You have a lot to catch me up on, Angel." 

Aziraphale smiled softly back in return. "Everything," he promised.

Crowley's eyes rose to the window, and he realized that the world outside was lightening. Aziraphale followed his gaze, sighed, and stretched. "I suppose maybe we should call it a night then." He took the frame off their laps as he stood. The blonde man gazed lovingly at it as he walked back to the bookcase and replaced the painting, pausing to press his index & middle fingers to his lips before pressing them to the glass protecting the portrait.

By the time Aziraphale turned around Crowley was also up on his feet, waving vaguely at the fireplace so the logs would extinguish themselves. "Alright Angel," he yawned, "Let's head upstairs." He held out an arm and Aziraphale happily snuggled against his side as they headed for the stairs to the flat above the shop. "Maybe I'll put another baby in you when we get up there," Crowley offered.

"Crowley!" the angel cried out, and shoved the demon away. He was both thoroughly scandalized at the statement, and immeasurably relieved that Crowley was joking about the situation already. 

"What! I thought you liked being pregnant!" The demon chided, following Aziraphale up the stairs.

"Too soon, Crowley, too soon," Aziraphale murmured good naturedly.

"'Too soon?' Who taught you that?" Crowley demanded in faux disgust. The response was lost, the two men-shaped beings having reached the top of the staircase, flicking off the last of the lights downstairs as they did so. The shop was dark, and quiet, save for the sound of floorboards creaking overhead while they prepared for bed.

From her perch on the bookshelf, Rosaline kept guard over it all.


End file.
